Balancing Full Time Work - MBA Study and Family

As some of my friends asked me how did I balance my full-time travelling consultant life with an MBA study and of course married wife and a kid?

Here is the simple Kungfu Panda Secret ... Its nothing but commitment & time management and of course very supportive wife. I will keep motivate myself by saying that you are not the one undergoing this.. there are 71 other Bay Area Working professionals in your class in the same boat...

I am seeing this note now only.. But I have to agree that I did as much as inline with it.

i) Say 'No' .. It's hard to say 'No' by any Indian standard. But I learnt to say 'No' when its going away from the target.

ii) Don’t procrastinate: In a quarter there are 10 classes (3 hr sessions) and finals sometimes. If the final is going to be a group assignment, you need to plan well ahead of time..

My Final was on 5th June. My wife was given date that our son will come around 5th June. Once my group buy in this criticality, I got necessary support to expedite the plan earlier than the actual date. Even if I could not attend final, as I have to be in India, my professor allowed me to take exam earlier than the usual time.

I have chosen this school because the classes are only in the weekend [ Class 1 - 2.00p.m - 5.00p.m Friday, Class 2 - 6.00p.m - 9.00p.m Friday , Class 3- 9.00a.m 12.00 noon, Class 4 1.00p.m - 4.00p.m on Saturday timings ]. Sample class schedule is here. Only during the core classes you will plan to attend every other week end classes. Otherwise you will end up going to school every week, if you pick your class in different weekends.

So in a typical week, an average you will have 6 hours of in-class learnings and 8 - 15hrs of out of class learnings...

My typical schedule will be as follows during my study time.

Monday : Reach client site and dwell into work and make sure you have got everything you needed for that week. So, prioritize the work. After 8.00p.m.. its time for study or related work. Quickly get something to eat.

I may have study group call @ 9.00p.m PST. So, plan your work prior to that. After call , if I have offshore work call then it will be from 12.00 midnight. Go to bed 1.00a.m PST.

Tuesday , Wednesday : Typically reach 8.00a.m or 10.00a.m depends on the client flexibility in the work schedule.. & continue as in Monday.

Thursday : Usually reach client earlier than other 3 days. Complete as much as your work then get ready to take flight. Buy some food to take in flight. Review / work on your assignments in flight. Once reached home spend sometime for family. Then you will have sometime to work related call or rarely study related calls. Then get ready for your Study. Friday you may have assignments due / midterm / case presentation or something you need to study. So, mostly this is best time to study until otherwise some burning issue @ work.

Friday : You will join the client meetings in the morning. In the afternoon you will get ready to reach class, if you have one. After class spend sometime with family and get ready for next day class. In the whole day, I will connect to client work, if necessary.

Saturday : Go to school and enjoy the learnings... @ 4.00p.m wow.. Burnt out for the week...

Time for family & friends and I hate to touch laptop in a Saturday evening....

Sunday : I am not a morning person. So, I get up around 10.00 a.m or 11.00 a.m .. After lunch get back to client work of course remote work.. Complete any pending office work of the week or even get ready to show a demo to the client. This is the best time to learn new work related technologies...

I may be taking a red eye flight or early morning flight.. But I made sure that I am so tired that I will sleep in the flight no matter what happens.. Once landed in Monday morning, client meeting starts and the week begins...

Hey just plan for your family during a break between a quarter, if there is one... :-)

All the best to future MBA Aspirants.

Cheers.. Leave your comments.. I will try to answer, if necessary

Balancing Full Time Work - MBA Study and Family

MBA Preparation

MBA preparation could take at least one year, if you time it well. I guess I timed it well.

In July 2006, I identified that following things are necessary for getting into a B-School.
i) GMAT Score
ii) TOEFL Score
iii) Essay Preparation
iv) Finance Planning

B-School Selection

Besides going through web information, I attended many Bay Area B-School Graduate information sessions.

I was looking for only Bay Area - Working Professional programs and only Nationally accredited - AACSB. So, I ignored San Jose State University. I was tossing between Santa Clara & newly opened San Ramon Campus of GSM, UC Davis.
Santa Clara was offering specialized MBA Programs. So, I choose GSM, UC Davis, which offers your choices of 15 electives from the pool of as many as 40 electives.

GMAT Preparation

I bought 3 new GMAT Original Guides.
i) GMAT Verbal Review
ii) GMAT Quantitative Review
iii) GMAT Review

I also registered some of the websites to practice exams.

My preparation is mostly in flights on the way back to home. Preparation duration from August '06 - December '06

I have taken first GMAT exam in the end of December '06. I thought I can improvise by taking the exam again. I again took GMAT exam in the end of January '07.

TOEFL Preparation

In the information session, I could talk to the admission committee to waive me from taking TOEFL exam as I was in USA for about 2 years at that time.

But I strongly recommend you to take TOEFL.

Essay Preparation

Virtually every USA B-School asks you to write 3 essays. The theme could be a) Why an MBA? b) Why my School c) What are your career goals (short term & long term)?.

So, give sufficient time prepare for these 3 questions.

I spent about 3 months (Jan'07 - Mar'07). Review as much as you can. Ask your friends also give an opinion.

Finance Planning

You may get scholarship, if you are doing a full-time MBA. But for working professional students with H1 visa, I am not aware of any financial aid. So, I started saving money ever since I thought about doing an MBA.

B-School Admission

Then I applied GSM, UC Davis in the second round around Apr'07. Personal interview session was scheduled around May '07. I got a call from GSM in July '07 that I was admitted to the '07 batch.

I got married in Aug'07. So, I missed the first day introduction session in Sep 15, 2007. But attended first class at the end of Sep 2007.

Journey continues till 28 Aug 2010.

MBA Preparation

Indian Undergraduate Vs American Graduate Experience

I was studying Bachelor Of Engineering in India from 1995 till 1999. It is a semester system. All the course evaluation will happen only about 3.00 hours of examination. Thats it. You can choose to study early on or catch up in the later time.

But my 2007 - 2010 MBA Experience is totally different.

Learning process is totally Collaborative. Evaluation as and when possible. Thats right. It is quarter based system and max of 10 classes - Classes are of 3 hours length.

In case of numerical papers, there will be a final. But its never more than 40% of your total score. Most of the time it will be closed book or 2 pages of notes allowed. Definitely there will be Homework Assignments. Mostly it will be of group assignments. There could be a Mid-Term Exam. Class participation could be 10% of the grade.

In case of Strategy classes, where there is no one right answer but many wrong answers, you will learn from others. So, class participation could be from 25% to 40%. There may be a final presentation mostly group project and about 30% of your grade.

In case of pure case based classes, you will have sufficient knowledge about the subject from your previous classes. But you take some real time cases and analyze / number crunch to solve it even before coming to the class. So, in class you work with professor to resolve the case. Here also class participation will be high. You may get a take home final of about 30% or 40%.

Indian Undergraduate Vs American Graduate Experience